Forfusion's IT Apprenticeship Success

The Forfusion Trainee Development Programme (TDP) is recruiting, developing and retaining grassroots talent to create members of the team

Posted by Sean Ball, Marketing Manager

You may be aware that this week is National Apprenticeship Week. Apprenticeships are becoming an emphasis of the Government’s plans to offset the increase in tuition fees.

This emphasis is forcing organisations to rethink how they recruit, develop and retain younger talent.

When Forfusion decided the time was right to open its doors to budding youngsters of the North East back in 2013, the term ‘apprenticeship’ was still strongly associated with more traditional engineering trades rather than IT.

Moreover, stringent syllabuses didn’t seem to correspond to the specialist qualifications and skills that our business required.

Forfusion needed to devise its own development scheme for grassroots talent. And so, the Forfusion Trainee Development Programme (TDP) was launched.

How does Forfusion's Traineeship work?

Forfusion's TDP combines multiple learning disciplines including on-the-job training, structured academic learning and mentoring from senior colleagues, to ensure those that graduate have a wide range of skills and experience.

Progress is measured via the regular testing of skills and knowledge across the two years of the programme.

The TDP is structured so that all successful candidates become valued members of the Forfusion engineering team on graduation.”

Grass Roots Bares Fruits

This post is very timely, not just because it’s National Apprenticeship Week, but because Forfusion’s first ever trainee, Alex Stoneman has just this week graduated from our inaugural TDP!

Alex’s final hurdle was to pass his Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Collaboration exam, which he did with ease (with full marks I might add!) to become a fully-fledged Cisco Network Engineer.

“It’s been a great pleasure to see Alex develop over the past couple of years. The feedback I hear from his line managers and peers isconsistently outstanding.

He should be very proud of his achievements.Alex has left his mark in Forfusion’s history as being Forfusion’s very first TDP graduate. ”

And that’s just the start

The next expected graduate is Laurence Price, who interestingly turned down an offer from Edinburgh Napier University’s BSc Computer Science course in favour of joining Forfusion.

Laurence is performing to a very high standard both on-the-job and in his qualification plan for TDP.

Forfusion is always on the lookout for the next raft of TDP candidates and are exploring providing apprenticeships with local FE colleges in the future, the success of our TDP has vindicated the decision we made in 2013.

If you’d like to find out more about Forfusion’s Traineeship Scheme, emailjobs@forfusion.com or call 0191 500 9100.